Credit: AP (File)

The judge overseeing the sentencing retrial of convicted spree killer Gary Lee Sampson ruled today that jurors will be able to consider the death penalty, rejecting a slew of defense motions.

In his 89-page ruling today, U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf denied numerous attempts by Sampson’s public defense team to take capital punishment off the table.

The lawyers’ failed arguments included that putting someone to death is an affront to eroding support for capital punishment. Wolf, however, wrote that most states, in addition to the federal government, have the death penalty as an option, “and juries in the past decade have imposed death sentences in jurisdictions that authorize it.”

Although the state of Massachusetts abolished capital punishment more than 30 years ago, a federal jury earlier this year sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 22, to die for the deadly 2013 terrorist attack.

Sampson believes the feds should be barred from seeking death-penalty authorization from the U.S. Attorney General in states where the sentence is outlawed.

Wolf also balked at Sampson’s claim that it would be cruel to execute him because he was mentally ill when in 2001 he carjacked and murdered Philip McCloskey, 69, and Jonathan Rizzo, 19, in Massachusetts, then drove Rizzo’s car to New Hampshire and killed Robert Whitney, 58 — all in the span of a week.

Wolf countered, “There is no national consensus against executing individuals who are criminally responsible and competent, even if they suffer from severe mental illness.”

Wolf four years ago overturned Sampson’s 2003 death verdict after learning one of his sentencing jurors lied about her family’s criminal history during the screening process.

The 56-year-old Abington native’s sentencing retrial was to start last month. However, Wolf canceled jury selection and all proceedings indefinitely while prosecutors seek the judge’s recusal on the grounds he entertained a defense witness at his home on Martha’s Vineyard this summer before both attended the film premiere of an anti-prison documentary.

Wolf has refused to step down voluntarily from the case he has presided over for more than a decade, arguing he did nothing wrong that would lead a reasonable observer to think he’s partial.

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office has asked Wolf to reconsider, and has requested he schedule a hearing for prosecutors to argue their position.